The Princeton economist Angus Deaton was puzzled by some of the trends in a Gallup poll that gauged “subjective well-being,” among other things. Namely, happiness seemed to rise beginning in early 2009, despite the terrible economic situation. This made no sense, until Deaton looked more closely at the questions Gallup was asking.

It turned out that in the run-up to the 2008 election, Gallup asked questions about political preferences first (i.e., before the ones measuring mood). “When those questions were dropped in early 2009,” as Wonkblog’s Suzy Khimm summarizes, “reported happiness immediately spiked.”

Deaton’s summary is eye-opening: “People appear to dislike politics and politicians so much that prompting them to think about them has a very large downward effect on their assessment of their own lives,” he writes. “The effect of asking the political questions on well-being is only a little less than the effect of someone becoming unemployed …”

Biographies

Gary Rosen is the editor of Review and the former managing editor of Commentary magazine. His articles and reviews have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times. He is the author of "American Compact: James Madison and the Problem of Founding" and the editor of "The Right War? The Conservative Debate on Iraq."